Thursday, May 31, 2012

The Sheltering Sky

The Sheltering Sky is a novel by Paul Bowles. I love everything Bowles wrote. Bernardo Bertolucci filmed this novel. I found the
movie less entertaining than the book; scarcely worth watching, is how I remember the film (and a big letdown after The Conformist). It's fair to note that, alas, Bowles's novel struck
me as scarcely worth finishing: it seemed to me, while I was trying to read it, that after writing about a third of what could have turned out to be a
very, very good book indeed, Bowles just got bored with it .... but continued
writing it anyway. He had got hold of a theme that wouldn't support a whole symphony? Not even a film score? Bowles is much better at writing short stories -- he's really at the top of his form, perhaps because they hold his
attention. Or because he doesn't get bored before they are over? Possibly a logline for a film would be his ideal length? Maybe The Sheltering Sky was just too big and too ambitious (as a book); or perhaps it needed a strong passionate romance at its core, and I don't think Bowles was temperamentally any more capable of writing a strong passionate romance than he was of living through one himself. Bowles spent much of his life in, and preferred living in, Morocco, a country where most of the natives despised him as a foreigner. What hapened to Bertolucci's flim, I don't know. Got lost in Morocco, I guess. Don't miss visiting the great Moroccan / Mediterranean restaurant Aromasin Charlottesville. Next time you're here. It is at Barracks Road. You might be here at the film festival, maybe -- at the beginning of November 2012? For the Messiah Sing In at Old Cabell Hall in early December? Thank you, NetFlix for making "a life with film included" possible here
in Bumpass, Virginia.

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About Me

Prize winning novelist and chef. My food column appeared in six daily newspapers long before the food revolution began. I have written several novels even less well known than beloved Gravely, which Scribner's published in 1984 and blessed with their Maxwell Perkins Prize. These manuscripts -- Why I Love Brunettes and Daughters -- are available to any interested reader. I started writing as a sports reporter on the Kingston Daily Freeman. I have a Master's Degree in Fiction Writing (telling lies?) ... but no B.A., though I do speak French and Spanish and have studied enough Greek to parse the Koinae. Long before I attended the famous Writers' Workshop at the University of Iowa, my food column Christian's Cookery used to appear in eight daily newspapers, including The Charlottesville Daily Progress and The Omaha World herald. After attending high school near Woodstock, New York, where they never had the Woodstock Music Festival, I owned a very successful money-making restaurant in Charlottesville. While working as a country mailman, I learned to jump small coops bareback. I have piloted hot air balloons. I love my children more than stars. Two of my best friends, both named David, died some years ago. I love scribbling, cooking and Morgon. I still believe B. Traven was Jack London. My favorite movie is Mr. Hulot's Holiday. And the restaurant opening scene from Playtime. Do you know me?